Cheong In Yu

WR 13300

Prof. Dietel-McLaughlin

7 March 2014

Journalism.com: Analyzing the Effects of Social Media and Mobile Devices on Journalism

On the final day of 2012, Newsweek published its very last magazine, with its cover

presenting a vintage photograph of the publication’s New York office and the hashtag

#LASTPRINTISSUE. The cover emphasized not only the 80-year history of the newsmagazine,

but also the impending future that is online publishing. With one of the largest magazines

disappearing from supermarket newsstands and subscribers’ mailboxes, the future of journalism

seems bleak, as the internet brings uncertainty to the industry. But in an announcement two

months prior to the final issue, Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown wrote about her organization’s

decision to merge with The Daily Beast. Brown said, “Exiting print is an extremely difficult

moment for all of us who love the romance of print… but as we head for the 80th anniversary of

Newsweek next year we must sustain the journalism that gives the magazine its purpose—and

embrace the all-digital future”. In her column, she cites not only the increasing difficulties of

maintaining print operations, but also the immense upsurge in readership for online and tablet

versions. In 2012, Newsweek generated 15 million unique visitors every month through The

Daily Beast, although the quality of journalism from Newsweek remained unchanged (Brown).

The 70% increase in readership revealed the industry’s future. In terms of business and long-

term planning, the decision to move completely online was the most strategic choice; Newsweek

reached a tipping point, where readers would best benefit from an all-digital platform.

The internet will mark a new age for journalism, rather than the death of it. News

organizations can harness new technology to not only regain readership, but also to deliver their

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stories efficiently and effectively. But with such a complex, intertwined relationship between

new technology and the institution of reporting, the transition from print to web is tumultuous.

Technology creates passive online readers, shortcomings in citizen journalism, and failing

corporate business models, all of which can compromise journalistic integrity. Although online

news presents newfound opportunities for publications, the industry must judiciously care for

and respond to these issues if journalism is to survive this digital generation.

With the advent of versatile mobile devices and social networking, news consumption is

on the rise. According to The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which

tracks trends and consumer behavior for American journalism, 44% of adults own smartphones

and 18% own tablets (Christian et al., “Mobile Devices”). New gizmos such as Android and

iPads have exploded in the market with American consumer behaviors; mobile devices have

turned into common household items. And with the increase in popularity for these devices,

Americans are starting to read more often through mobile apps. While laptops and desktops are

currently the most prevalent method of reading online articles, tech consumers are beginning to

utilize their toys. Recent research has revealed that approximately 23% of Americans now

consistently read news on two or more different devices (Christian et al., Mobile Devices”). The

mobile news consumption is rather simple: as more devices are sold, readership increases.

Smartphones and tablets purely provide a consumer experience unmatched by newspapers and

even the most advanced laptops. Journalism surely has a prospect in the mobile industry, but

must be wary of technology’s effects on readers, which will be discussed later in this essay.

Social media usage points toward the same effect on news consumption. With

exponentially growing Facebook and Twitter memberships, more Americans come in contact

with news services in the social network. The Pew Research Center’s Amy Mitchell states that

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47% of adult Facebook users receive news stories during their time on the website. Since roughly

64% of Americans are on Facebook, this amounts to approximately 30% of the U.S. adult

population receiving news through a single website. The nature of Facebook fluidly exposes its

users to worldly topics and stories, virally spread throughout the network of friends and families.

News organizations, from international broadcast networks to high school newspapers, can

participate in spreading news by creating “pages” and using features such as hashtags and

Facebook “Trending” to reach a wider range of audiences. But perhaps the greatest benefit

Facebook offers to news websites is its natural “stickiness”; the average user spends 12 minutes

on one of the top news sites, as opposed to 423 minutes on Facebook, nearly 35 times longer

(Christian et al., “Facebook and Twitter”). In that time span, Facebook users regularly see news

articles shared by their connections and click on new links, redirecting themselves to the host

news site. Social media’s versatile abilities hold the power to revitalize consistent levels of

readership through the online platform.

However, the sheer number of mobile device and social media users fail to capture the

consumers’ attitudes on online journalism. In reality, technology is creating a new generation of

passive readers. Much like newspaper readers who look only the headlines and photos and

broadcast news viewers who tune out while watching the channel, passive online readers

disengage themselves from the content and skim through news sites. Raj Aggarwal of Localytics

states that while the frequency of news apps being launched on devices has increased by 39%,

session lengths have decreased by 26% on a year to year basis. Several statistics point to a rise in

the popularity of mobile news, but users are devoting less time into reading. While people still

spend more time on news apps than on others (4.2 minutes on news apps versus 3.2 minutes on

all apps), this downward trend of shorter reading periods indicates that mobile users are less

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engaged in the news than previous years (Aggarwal). In addition, tablet news users are

increasingly utilizing browsers to access news, rather than the publications’ apps. Sixty percent

of tablet users and 61% of smartphone users mostly use browsers to get their news; The Pew

Research Center’s 2011 survey revealed that app users, in many ways, are the “more engaged

and deeper news users” than their browser-using counterparts (Rosenstiel 5). In other words,

online publications currently do not have apps which can promote regular, consistent readership

from its consumers, reshaping consumer behavior towards mobile news.

Social networks are also contributing to the increase in reader passiveness. Of the 30% of

American adults who get news on Facebook, only 22% see Facebook as a useful way to receive

news, with the other 78% getting news while using Facebook for other reasons, such as

connecting with one’s friends (Mitchell, “The Role of News on Facebook” 1). In fact, in the

same report, only 16% of Facebook users identify “getting news” as a major function of

Facebook. News on Facebook is more of a byproduct of the website, rather than conscious

efforts by news organizations to reach their audience. Most importantly, surveys show that social

media does not drive news consumption as projected. Only 9% of U.S. adults who digitally

receive news get it through Facebook and Twitter recommendations (Christian et al. “Facebook

and Twitter”). Considering that 30% of all Facebook users receive news on the site, the numbers

are fairly concerning to online news operations. Social media is failing to meet its full

journalistic potential.

While recent numbers may point to an overall increase in visitors and distribution of

news, consumers generally hold apathetic attitudes to online articles, a behavior which can easily

translate into reversal of trends. Decrease in readership should stay as a threat in the journalism

industry, which must not be fooled by the statistics of increasing mobile users and social media

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users. However, this is preventable. Aggarwal says, “The key to unlocking monetization for

mobile news apps – such as paid subscriptions and in-app advertising – lies in having deep

insights about your users, their lifetime value, and how they engage with your content and then

personalizing the app experience”. As long as news groups can design apps and mobile content

to user preferences and accessibility, online publications should stay consistently popular, if not

grow in readership. As for social media, news organizations should seek to become a more

consistent part of the social media experience, by more aggressively pushing their articles and

their profile page to the users without compromising the social networking site. Journalism must

restore the intimate connection between the reader and the news and close the gap created by

hypermediacy of online articles.

Yet, this intimate connection can also pose another danger, as the industry exposes itself

to the inadequacies of citizen journalism. The most valuable element of online news, the ability

to connect the reader to the journalist, compromises the integrity of reporting.

Through the form of blogs and comments, the internet gives the audience the ability to

respond and publish stories of their own. Amongst professional journalists, “netizens” may

create and distribute their stories easily and even anonymously. Journalism, in some ways, can

be enhanced, as database of knowledge deepens with these participants.

OhmyNews, a South-Korean citizen news website written entirely by contributors with

no prior journalism experience, represents the most dramatic example of this participation. While

professional editors review the articles, the writers bring a fresh, personal angle to the stories.

OhmyNews strays from the tenets of traditional journalism, but the website has gained traction

and credibility over the years. The website now hosts over two million pages views every day.

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As Professor of Journalism at Bournemouth University Stuart Allan calls it, OhmyNews

represents the “Korean startup of future journalism” (Allan 235).

Yet, as developed and successful online participatory journalism can be, several critics

such as Professor of Journalism at Columbia University Samuel Freedman, believe that “to treat

an amateur as equally credible as a professional…is only to further erode the line between raw

material and finished product” (Allan 219). Nonprofessional reporters are particularly subject to

mistakes, especially in breaking news conditions.

Following the bombings during the Boston Marathon in 2013, social networking service

and news website, Reddit, found itself in media frenzy, after users mistakenly identified the

wrong subject as the bomber. In what was supposed to be “the most crowdsourced terror

investigation in American history” (Abad-Santos), community members began to post

speculations of the bombers, incorrectly labelling missing Brown student Sunil Triphathi as the

bomber. In an interview, founder of the subreddit /r/findbostonbombers stated, “There’s a big

difference between journalistic integrity and the opinion of some guy on Reddit. Reddit should

never ever ever [sic] be used as a source, unless there's actually some proof there” (Abad-

Santos). While Reddit demonstrated the power of online communities and its ability to research

and report breaking news immediately, the internet can easily propagate false information.

Moreover, studies show that the public now considers online news to be the most credible

news source (Speakman 7). Due to stories of bias and inaccuracies in broadcast and print

journalism, news readers now perceive online articles as the most dependable resources,

assuming a stricter editorial gate-keeping from online communities. However, the internet can

produce grave errors, as it was seen with Reddit post-bombing. Publications such as The New

York Post and NewsBreaker made the error of pulling false and undeveloped speculations and

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attributing them as facts. Because online journalism has the public’s trust, publications must be

even more wary to be factually accurate in all coverage. While incorporating the user in modern

news experience is beneficial for the industry, utilizing online communities as journalists can

effectively damage the journalism industry and the reputations of major publications.

The industry must also consider the effects the online transition will have on the business

aspect of journalism. In the “Digital Migration”, where reporters move from failing legacy

publications and into newly developing online organizations, such as BuzzFeed and The

Huffington Post, employment has significantly risen in the industry as more “native digital news

organizations” are set up. For example, in the past two years, BuzzFeed has grown from six

editorial employees to at least 170. (Mitchell, “Growth in Digital Reporting” 11). Having

struggled with continuous employment cuts in the media industry for the past decade, journalism

now appears to have found a stable business operation in the internet. However, the new

employment rate fails to portray the economic realities of news organizations.

The clear indication that business operations in journalism still struggle is the lack of

success in advertising. Currently, advertising accounts for 69% of news revenue (Holcolm), but

digital ad revenues have only grown by 3.7% in the past year (Mitchell, “Growth in Digital

Reporting” 30). Despite several high-profile financial investments in publications, such as Jeff

Bezos’s ownership of The Washington Post, and significant rise in employment, there are no

clear indications that the journalism industry will bring in enough revenue to support these

digital age expansions. Media analyst Ken Doctor stated that The Huffington Post is “flirting

with probability” in hopes of making a profit (Mitchell, “Growth in Digital Reporting” 5). In

addition, for his investment to turn in a profit, Pierre Omidyar of eBay will likely have to commit

even more money to First Look Media, even after depositing $250 million into the company

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(Mitchell, “Growth in Digital Reporting” 30). Even with these financial activities, no business

model exists for digital media organizations, putting the industry in a precarious position. The

current state of the industry presents an exciting time for journalism, as new pioneering digital

news organizations develop more investigative and engaging news reports. But without a stable,

financial outlook, these ventures cannot be sustained. Online news organizations must be fully

developed enough to replace the dying print operations in America and preserve the industry.

The internet offers a haven for the endangered monoliths of journalism, but concerns of

decreasing readership, credibility, and failing business plans still haunt publications to the web,

and, to a certain extent, are accentuated online. Despite the benefits of an all-digital platform to

consumer accessibility, the web is still an untested, unpredictable, and unforgiving environment

for news organizations to survive in. Roughly a year and a half after its final print issue,

Newsweek finds itself in a more stabilized state. The introduction of The Daily Beast has helped

the publication to end its five-year slide in which they saw their number of subscriptions and

single-copy sales severed by 50%, but the publication rests at their lowest point (Matsa). And

even though The Daily Beast has blossomed into a reliable news site over the past years,

Newsweek’s digital platforms only accounted for 6.6% of total revenue, and are projected to rise

to only 14.5% by 2016 (Matsa). The sobering truth is that the internet does not promise financial

well-being. However, technology is undoubtedly the future of news, and provides far brighter

outlooks than the print versions. If the next generation of journalists manages to tackle the

dilemmas of the internet’s flaws, journalism will grow together with the technological boom and

return to its heyday.

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Works Cited

Abad-Santos, Alexander. “Reddit's 'Find Boston Bombers' Founder Says 'It Was a Disaster' but

'Incredible'.” The Wire: What Matters Now. The Wire. 22 April 2013. Web. 5 April 2014.

Aggarwall, Raj. “Will Mobile Save News Publishers?” Localytics. n.p, 9 Aug. 2013. Web. 5

April 2014.

Allan, Stuart. News Culture. 3rd ed. New York: Open University Press, 2010. Print.

Brown, Tina. “A Turn of the Page for Newsweek.” The Daily Beast. Newsweek, 18 Oct. 2012.

Web. 3 April 2014.

Christian, Leah, Amy Mitchell, and Tom Rosenstiel. “Mobile Devices and News Consumption:

Some Good signs for Journalism.” The State of the News Media 2012: An Annual Report

on American Journalism (2012): n. pag. Web. 22 March 2014.

Christian, Leah, Amy Mitchell, and Tom Rosenstiel. “What Facebook and Twitter Mean for

News.” The State of the News Media 2012: An Annual Report on American Journalism

(2012): n. pag. Web. 22 March 2014.

Holcolm, Jesse. “The Revenue Picture for American Journalism and How It Is Changing.” Pew

Research Journalism Project. The Pew Research Center. 26 March 2014. Web. 5 April

2014.

Matsa, Katerina Eva. “Newsweek by the Numbers.” Pew Research Journalism Project. The Pew

Research Center. 3 June 2013. Web. 5 April 2014.

Mitchell, Amy. The Role of News on Facebook: Common yet Incidental (2013): n. pag. Web. 22

March 2014.

Mitchell, Amy. The Growth in Digital Reporting: What it Means for Journalism and News

Consumers (2014): n. pag. Web. 22 March 2014.

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Rosenstiel, Tom. The Future of Mobile News (2012): n. pag. Web. 22 March 2014.

Speakman, Burton. Print vs. Online Journalism: Are Believability and Accuracy Affected By

Where Readers Find Their Information? MA Thesis. University of Nebraska- Lincoln,

2011. Web.